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along with this proposition.
It was partly successful.
The
Italians have lowered their demand for British participation
in the civil contract to 25%. Costains and their partners are
willing to take about 121%. The DTI have urged the Export
Group for the Constructional Industries, whose Vice-Chairman is
H WA Francis of Tarmac, to find ways of closing the 121% gap.
Mr Francis has undertaken to approach the industry in an attempt
to organise the additional support required. The DTI assess the
prospects of this as reasonable.
2. Meanwhile the Japanese have put in what the Hong Kong
Government describe as a "pre-emptive bid". The Hong Kong
Government are currently considering whether it is "valid".
They expect to be able to take a decision on this in the next
day or two, and have said that they would then give the other
consortia 30 days in which to put in a valid bid or bids in
competition with the Japanese.
3.
Another development is that, at the stage where they were
doubtful of the possibility of an Anglo/Italian consortium, GEC
asked ECGD to reopen their tentative contact with the Japanese. Flag A 23 The Japanese response is enclosed with Mr Cotterill's letter of
Flag B 5 October. I responded on 9 October that the Japanese seemed
to consider that their pre-emptive bid had put them ahead of
the game; that it was too early for us to decide whether, if at
all, we wanted to co-operate with the Japanese; but in any case
I did not think we were necessarily in such a weak political
position as their answer seemed to imply. There the matter
rests.
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